Devil May Care

Chapter 1

It had been a warm sunny day when the new family moved in next-door. There was the father, a large quiet man with silver hair and almost black eyes but with a kind smile. There was the mother, a kind caring woman with bright blue eyes and waist length blonde hair. Then there were the twin sons, one quiet one loud, both with their father’s silver hair and their mother’s blue eyes. I was sitting on the porch swing watching them move in. One of the boys just looked at me the other smiled and waved. I waved back to both of them.

It was three days before my parents decided we should pay a visit to the new family to say hello. I was so nervous when the door was answered, they were the first new people that I had ever met. The mother said her name was Eve, her husband’s name was Jasper and their sons were Aaron and Anthony.  Eve told me I could go find the boys and the adults stayed in the living room to talk.

I found them in their bedroom playing with wooden swords. When I walked in they stopped and looked at me.

“Hi.” I said shyly.

“Hello.” Aaron had said then went and read on his bed.

“Hi.” Anthony had said with a smile. “Do you wanna play?”

“Swords? Sure.”

“No. No sword playing with this little lady please boys. I don’t want her getting hurt.” Eve said as she came to see if we wanted snacks.

I had pouted in that way that only little six year old girls could but both boys listened to her and refused to play. We ended up playing tag instead although Anthony and I had had to tickle Aaron to get him to agree to play. I accidentally knocked over a large vase which broke. I was so scared I’d be yelled at but when our parents all came running to find out what happened Aaron said it was him. I tried to come clean but he kept talking over me and Anthony kept telling me to shh. It was two days before I plucked up the courage to tell Eve who really broke it. She just laughed and said she knew all along and she was proud that three six year olds could all be so protective of each other. Then she gave me a strawberry sundae which she had hand made. They were her special treats for us (I think this is why Dante still eats them now).

A few weeks later we started school. We walked together to and from school and our parents would take it in turns to walk with us. Aaron and I ended up in the same class but Anthony ended up in a different class. Aaron was never bothered but Anthony was, until he became best friends with Ernest. I would make sure we all spent lunchtimes together and I would hang out with Aaron during classes. He always acted like I annoyed him but I think he was just pretending. We had some good in-depth debates about books we liked as we both read way ahead of our ages.

Things went on this merry little way until one night Jasper went to work and never came back. Eve was inconsolable. Aaron turned even colder and Anthony was just lost. My parents spent even more time with Eve trying to help her and I would always try to cheer the boys up. No-one ever said what happened to Jasper.

 One day I was sitting on Anthony’s bed brushing his hair when he suddenly turned round and looked at me.

“Can we trust you?” He asked.

“Yes of course.” I replied, tilting my head curiously.

“Don’t!” Aaron said to Anthony.

“I trust her.” Anthony replied. “Our names aren’t our real names.”

“What?” I asked.

“My father’s name was actually Sparda. My mother’s name is Eva. His name is Vergil and my name is Dante.”

“Why would you lie about your names?”

“Mother says there are monsters that want to kill us. That’s what happened to our Father.” Anthony/Dante said sadly.

“Which is why you can never tell anyone.” Aaron/ Vergil said. “You promise?”

“I promise.”

“Do a blood oath then.” Vergil/Aaron said. “If you break a blood oath to us we turn into monsters and eat you whole.”

“Okay.”

Vergil/Aaron got a knife from his Mother’s room. All three of us cut our hands (which I still carry the scar from) and press our hands together mixing our blood. It’s a promise I kept well, which cost me dearly.

About a year later, just after the boys and I celebrated our seventh birthdays, there was a huge fire through the town. I was asleep in my bedroom when it happened and I still remember the panic on my mother’s face when she woke me up and said we were in danger. I got out of bed and started getting dressed. There was a huge crash from the front of my house and when I went into the living room the entire front of the house was gone and in its place was a huge monster. The monster had a hold of both my parents and kept screeching the same sentence over and over again.

“Where’s Dante?” It kept screeching. “Where’s the half-breed twins?”

I refused to acknowledge I knew anyone by that name. Even when it threatened to kill my parents I refused to tell it anything. I wouldn’t break their confidence. Not because I believed in the blood oath but because it was the right thing to do. I refused to tell it anything even as it slowly squeezed my parents to death.

When Eva and the boys came running the monster had moved on and I was cradling the bloody corpses of my parents. I was crying and screaming but they wouldn’t wake up.

“I’m so sorry sweetie.” Eva said picking me up. “They’re gone but I’m going to look after you, I swear.”

She handed me to Dante and told the boys to take me to the special hiding place (a cave by the sea) with them until she came back for us. It was an hour after dawn when she turned up. She told us the monster was gone and that I would be living with them from now on.

I got my own room in the Sparda household all done in purple (Eva’s and my favourite colour). I had horrid nightmares for weeks afterwards where my parents would scream that it was all my fault they died. They would be broken and bloody with eyes hanging out and limbs hanging weirdly. Every time I woke up crying the boys would be there. They would lay in the bed on either side of me and we’d all fall asleep like that.

People of the town blamed Eva for what happened. Said she had started the fire. It took two months before their hatred and accusations finally wore her down and we moved to a whole new city.

 

Things settled down and we all moved on. The boys would still practice with their wooden swords. One day I finally managed to get Eva to agree to let me join in. I think we were all shocked when I managed to go toe-to-toe with both boys for over five minutes. Dante would always charge in thinking his power would do the job whereas Vergil would be calm and collected waiting for the right time to strike. I fought more like Vergil.  Eva sat us down after that and told us somethings. She told us Sparda had been a good demon, that Dante and Vergil were half-demons and that my parents told her I was part demon too. From that day on we all made sure we sparred together every day and none of us ever held back.

On our eighth birthday Eva gave Vergil a ruby and gold amulet and a katana called Yamato. She gave Dante a ruby and silver amulet (a copy of Vergil’s) and a broadsword called Rebellion. She gave me twin Katanas called Ying and Yang. The boy’s swords used to belong to Sparda and mine used to belong to Eva.

A month later our world fell apart again. It was a stormy night. Dante and I were in the same bed asleep. Vergil had obviously gotten up as he wasn’t there anymore. We heard a scream from the back of the house. We jumped out of bed and grabbed our swords. We ran to the noise. Vergil was lying in a pool of his own blood. Gutted and laying there like a broken doll dead eyes staring at the ceiling. Eva was struggling with two demons in the dining room. She looked at us and told us to run and as we did as we were told, we looked over our shoulders to see the demons rip her apart in to nothing more than raw meat. With her screaming the whole time. Not for help or in pain but for us to escape, to run. She always had been stronger than she looked. A strength I try to have every day too.

We ran and ran until we found a sewer entrance and we hid there until dawn. When the sun rose we snuck back into the house and found what was left of the bodies. We grabbed some clothes and Dante found a picture of his mother that was untouched and we left. A few days later we watched the funeral from a clump of trees at the edge of the cemetery. We stayed there holding hands until the graves were filled and then we left flowers on the graves and headed to a new town. It wasn’t until years later that we found out Vergil had to dig his way out of his own grave just to be attacked by demons when he finally got free.